We need to talk
by Doc Lee
Summary: Another post Limey fic, with a couple of uses of the F-word. Just bashing out an idea of a scene to 'fix' things


Yeah,another post Limey fic, set a few hours after it ended, so spoilers up to that episode. when i started this i was a bit miffed at the hypocrisy that the writers were having Castle show and i just rambled out this. As there is a couple of uses of the F-word, this fic may not be suitable for all. Depending on how this is received, i may make a short sequel... but i hope you enjoy anyway.

I don't own anything but the Michael Charleston mentioned in this fic... the rest belongs to those that own Castle

'Come to the Loft' Beckett frowned at the voicemail on her phone, 'We need to talk.' What confused Beckett the most wasn't the strange summoning, or the ominous statement, but it was the tone in Castle's voice. Defeat.

Her night had been a disaster, Hunt was a fun guy and any other time in her life, she'd have greatly enjoyed his company. But tonight, with Castle's continued strange behaviour eating away at her, Kate wanted to be anywhere but with the handsome Brit. Picking her keys & bike helmet up from the coffee table, Kate slipped her feet into the nearest pair of shoes and headed out her flat without a single though as to how she looked in her comfy clothes or lack of makeup.

Clipping the helmet on her head as she approached her motorbike, Kate sighed at the nagging feeling in her gut. a feeling that stayed with her as she roared off into the night.

_**SCENE**_

He was an idiot.

Richard Castle sat in his chair behind his writing desk, his gaze on the half empty bottle of alcohol at the end of the desk. The bottle he'd opened a few hours earlier after the stewardess had slapped him and stormed out. The bottle that dulled the agony that Kate Beckett had inflicted on him. The agony that he knew he'd put on her two-fold when she found out about the screen over his shoulder.

And yet, here he was preparing to deliberately inflict it on her. Rick's reasonable mind knew that Kate hadn't intended to crush him with her lies, but that reasonable mind was buried deep under the rubble of his heart and the effort to pull himself to the surface was greater than he could fully comprehend for the time being. But he was trying, Rick knew the hypocrisy that lay out before him with the anger at her lie while simultaneously holding a equally explosive lie, Even though hers was to save his embarrassment and his was to save her life, Rick knew that he had no real right to be as angry as he was. Yet here he was with a glass full of some damn good whiskey, his shoulder perched against the now open balcony door, brooding his mistakes

The two of them were as bad as each other.

_**SCENE**_

Leaning against the Balcony railing, Castle refused to turn back and look to where Kate sat quietly waiting, 'PTSD.'

'What about it?' Kate frowned in confusion, Rick's comment not among the things she'd thought he'd invited her over to talk about. Having welcomed her in, Castle had poured out a equally large glass for Kate, before retreating to the balcony. The silence had grated and irritated, but he'd ordered her over to talk, so she could wait, forever if needed, for him to start.

'I don't understand how you could have it over being shot,' Castle barrelled on as Kate opened her mouth to sip, 'If you don't remember it. Which lead me to think that you were slowly remembering it.'

Castle turned to face Beckett, her glass frozen in place in front of her face, 'And then I saw you in the interrogation room last week.' Beckett's gasp of shock and horror rang out like a trumpet in the quiet room. 'I was furious, hurt, upset, take your pick, I was it. Then I realised that I was a hypocrite.'

Frozen in shock, Kate could only stare at Castle as her mind went into overdrive.

'There I was raging against you for not telling me you knew,' Rick placed the glass on the desk and brought his hand up to the monitor, 'and here I was keeping something just as devastating from you.' Castle pressed a finger to the screen, causing it to light up, Beckett's grinning face slap dead in the centre of the screen.

'Rick?' Kate's voice trembled as Castle typed in a password, her fears realized when the screen flashed to show a electronic murder board, a murder board of her mother's murder.

'I got a phone call you see,' Castle calmly slipped past the screen and sat in his desk chair, 'The day you returned to the 12th. The man on the other end had me meet him, where he simply informed me that he'd received a package from Roy that meant he could hold the Dragon at bay...'

Castle took a deep breath, '...if you stopped your crusade against him. So I stopped you, made you leave the case alone, so you could live... so I could wait for you to be ready.'

'And now I find out that you knew all along and obviously don't give a fuck about me,' Castle's overly calm face drained of any emotion, 'So I ask myself, why bother keeping this from you?'

'You...'Kate gulped down the large lump that was steadily growing in her throat, 'You've been investigating my mother's murder without me? knowing that they'd try and kill me if I'd kept on doing the same thing?'

'More like just running theories at the facts I knew already,' Castle answered as he poured out another glass of alcohol, 'Though it's only recently that I found out the Dragon has his claws on Bobby.' Castle sighed at the memory of finding out that his long time friend was connected to the Dragon.

'So,' Kate flinched when Castle spoke up a few moments later, his voice overly jolly, 'That's my soul destroying lie... now, about yours...'

'That I remembered everything from before being shot since I woke up?' Kate quietly answered, 'and that I kept it quiet and lied to your face because... I...'

'You were embarrassed that this dumb fool had fallen for you?' Castle snapped, anger lacing his voice, 'and you had no clue how to tell me that I was such an idiot for thinking that I had a chance?'

Kate could only stare back at Castle across the desk, her mouth dropping open in utter shock.

'Is... is that what you think?' Kate whispered into the silence, 'That I don't love you?'

'Why else would you lie?'

'I lied because I was broken,' Kate shot to her feet and began pacing across the small room, 'I lied because I knew that the real me couldn't compare with 'The Great Detective Kate Beckett' that you saw,' Kate paced, her hands moving as fast as her mouth, 'I lied because I thought you'd run if you knew just how broken and fucking weak the real me is.'

'I've been seeing a physiologist,' Kate revealed to Castle's surprise, 'So I can stop being utterly petrified every time a car backfires or someone looks at me funny. So I can get a handle on the fact there's a man out there,' Kate threw her hand out to the TV screen, 'Who had me freaking SHOT to cover the fact he killed my mother.'

'I've been seeing him to make myself better,' Kate's voice hitched, 'To make myself worthy of you.'

'And I left it too late,' Kate let the tears fall as she turned and looked out the balcony into the New York night sky, her arms snaking around her body as she fought the overriding urge to weep.

Rick sat behind his desk, the buzz from his alcohol gone, such was the surprise at Kate's outburst. How had he got things so damned messed up?

The sound of a strangled sob pushed Castle into motion, his body propelling him out of the chair and across to where Beckett had propped herself up against the balcony doorway, her shoulders shaking as another sob was quashed.

Reaching her side, Castle didn't bother asking permission from Kate before spinning her around and wrapping his arms around her almost too slim body. As he'd suspected in the moment it took to move to her, this was an action that broke the camel's back and Kate crumpled against Rick as she let loose a torrent of soul wrenching sobs.

Feeling Kate start to drop to the floor as her legs gave way, Rick made the decision and let her fall, his arms holding her up as he shifted to the nearest chair, Kate's sobs seemingly unending. With one hand rubbing her back, Rick silently sat, his body rocking slightly, as he let Kate do something that he suspected she'd not done properly in years, grieve. Grieve for her mother, her father, Royce, Roy, for him, for her, for everything.

Rick didn't care how long he sat in the seat, nor did he properly register his study door creak open with a small red topped head peering around into the room before silently exiting again. It wasn't until he realised that the sound of sobbing wasn't the only sound in the room that Rick stopped his rocking.

'I need you,' Kate was murmuring brokenly and repeatedly between sobs, her fingers digging into his shoulders as her arms snaked behind his shoulders, 'I love you.'

'I love you too, Kate,' Castle rumbled, 'but you already knew that. I love you Kate, not just Detective Beckett, but you as well. just about everything about you is so easy to love.'

'just about everything?,' Kate hiccupped, her voice raw and scratchy.

'I hate the fact you can't see how amazing you are,' Rick grinned as Kate pulled back to look at him, 'I hate the fact that it's been put into your head that you aren't extraordinary, that there's nothing you can't do.'

'Rick...' Kate sniffed, doubt clouding her face.

'No,' Rick lifted her chin up, so she'd look him in the eye, 'You are amazing, extraordinary and anyone who says otherwise is an idiot.'

'You think you're weak, unworthy, a failure?' Rick felt his heart drop as Kate nodded, 'Listen to me, if you are all of those things... then what about this?' Rick moved his free hand to in front of her torso, a finger extended to between her breasts.

'Rick?'

'You took a fucking sniper round to the goddamn heart Kate,' Rick's voice showed the pain he felt every time he remembered that day, 'and you got up again... You. Got. Up! My God Kate, that's Chuck Norris levels of Bad-assery.'

'How can you be any of that when you have the strength to overcome that?' Rick's gaze bore into Kate, 'To overcome your mother's death,' Rick pointed behind her, to the monitor blinking on the wall,' to not only deal with having an alcoholic parent, but to drag them out of it by their boots.'

'Anyone else would be curled up in a corner somewhere,' Rick continued as Kate tried to speak, 'but not you. You still get up every day and run headlong into the type of creatures that have caused you so much pain. That is Strength. That is worthiness. That is so far from failing that it's unimaginable'

'That's what Burke says,' Kate sniffed, 'Tries to get through this thick head.'

'Is it working?'

'A bit,' Kate admitted, 'It's a little easier to ignore that voice telling me I'm a failure and weak.'

'I'm sorry,' Kate breathed as she snuggled against Castle a moment later, a move that took his breath away, 'I'm sorry I lied, kept the truth from you.'

'I can understand now,' Rick sighed, 'I may not like it or be happy that it happened, but I understand most of why you did it.'

'When you are able to understand all my reasons,' Kate paused, her next words coming hesitantly,' Will you... would.. could you... be able... to...well... be capable of ... forgiveness for my inability to properly... and fully explain myself?'

'it depends,' Rick felt Kate tense up in his arms, 'On your reaction to the fact I was looking into your mother's murder after telling you to quit.'

'You were thinking with this,' Kate poked his chest after a minute's silence, 'Instead of this,' Kate tapped Castle's head, 'and that is something I can't be truly angry at. That being said I am pissed that you thought it was safe for you to investigate something that had put a target on my back, what if they put one on yours or Alexis' or Martha's?'

'I was careful,' Castle defended himself, 'I made sure that the screen wasn't Wi-Fi or internet capable, and it needs not only my handprint, but a password to be activated. There are systems in this that are so advanced, they're not going to be on sale to the public for maybe ten years at the earliest'

'Let me guess,' Kate smirked at the gleam in his eyes, 'You know a guy who knows a guy?'

'Something like that...' Rick trailed off, his tone causing Kate to frown in confusion at what he wasn't saying.

'You've taken so many precautions, but you have to stop,' Kate shook her head and sighed before speaking, 'You have to put it away and let it be. I've come to terms with never being able to get true justice for my own mother, and you have to as well.'

'Getting justice for her will be meaningless if I lose you,' Kate felt the tears begin again, 'or Alexis or Martha or Ryan or Espo or Lanie.'

'I'll turn it off,' Castle stated, 'But I'll not delete the data. I'll give it to my guy to keep safe...'

'Rick...' Kate gasped.

'Kate,' Rick's voice was filed with determination, 'This man I trust with my life, with all our lives. Remember the RAF Fighter pilot from some of the later Storm books?'

'Charlie Michaels?'

'Yeah,' Rick chuckled, the deep rumbling vibrating through Kate, 'Real name Mike Charleston, He's part of some top secret research group and was the one that gave me the screen. He's safer than safe. He...'

'I trust you,' Rick knew that, for Kate to say that, she truly meant it.

'I trust you too,' Castle answered immediately, 'and I'm sorry for assuming the way I did. If I'd just swallowed my pride for a few minutes and spoken to you, then all of this would have been avoided.'

'Same could be said for me lying to you for all these months,' Kate shifted her head into the crook of Rick's neck, a hand playing with his T-shirt collar.

'I love you,' Rick breathed.

'I know,' Rick felt Kate's grin as she replied instantly.

'Oh no you don't,' Rick laughed as he stood Kate up, 'You don't get to Solo me in my own home.'

Kate screeched with laughter as Rick's hand shot out and began to tickle her right side. Twisting away, she bolted to the door, laughing as she ran.

Grinning like a loon, Rick followed her out, his hands and fingers reaching out to torture the woman before him.

With a happy, and embarrassed, sigh, Alexis Castle made a tactical retreat from the open plan loft, a large grin splitting her face. She knew, along with the two 'adults' that there was a long road to go down before things were completely resolved, and she knew that there's be shouting matches and sulks to contend with before then.

But tonight it was enough, tonight was the start of the beginning.


End file.
